Hive Inspection #10 - We Found Both Queens, But Hive One Just Changed Our Plans, Part 3

Inspection ten delivered more than we expected. We found both queens — hive two finally gave her up after she dodged us for the last few inspections — but hive one stopped us in our tracks with something we weren’t anticipating. Two queen cells. And that changes everything. These are supercedure cells, which means the colony is signaling that it intends to replace its existing queen. Under normal circumstances the right move is to step back and let the bees handle it — they’ve been making that decision far longer than we have. But this particular queen is new, she’s highly productive, and we aren’t ready to let the colony make that call on their own just yet. So the plan has changed. Instead of letting the supercedure run its course we are going to use those queen cells to split hive one into three separate colonies. It’s a more aggressive move but it gives us the opportunity to expand the apiary while preserving a queen we believe in and putting those cells to work rather than letting them go to waste. This is exactly the kind of decision that separates beekeeping from just owning bees. The hive gave us an opportunity and we’re taking it. We’ll be uploading the split video next — three colonies from one hive using what the bees built themselves. Stay tuned, because that one is going to be worth watching. 🐝 Lily Rose Farmstead | Southern Indiana #hiveinspection #honey #bee #apiarylife #apiary #beekeeping #beekeepingforbeginners #queencell #queen #indiana #homesteading #farm #farmsteading #family #familyfarm #learning